We're On A Pilgrimage

Psalm 63:1 (NASB) - Early Will I Seek Thee”    

An aging wizened sheriff in a popular movie a couple of years back stood gazing out of a window near the film’s end.  After spending several days in the storyline tracking down a psychopathic evil money-grubbing villain--he sadly commented, ‘ I always kind of thought that God would somehow kind of come into my life as I got older…but He never did.’  (I think it’s about the saddest line in that movie).  His lamentation of a life lived rather cavalierly—just doing the pretty mundane things that we regular folks do-- reminded me of how common that character’s line of theological reasoning about God is—that is, until the Lord opens our spiritual eyes to see differently. After He graciously calls us out of our spiritually dead and lost condition into a personal intimate relationship with Him, He calls us to joyfully seek Him.  The opposite stance, one chosen by too many professing Christians anyway, is to assume that following our spiritual new birth, what should be the ensuing path of growing in Christ will just happen by osmosis.  Surely, He found us, (not the other way around), but then calls us to follow after Him—to be in daily lifelong pursuit of Him!  We’re called to seek to please Him (Jn. 8:29), seek to grow up in Him, (2 Peter 3:18), seek to emulate Him in our chosen values, thought-patterns, or attitudes (Philippians 2:5), about every facet, event, and set of circumstances, good and bad, in this temporal earthly life.

We can purpose to make these things our daily goal at any point in the year and experience the promised joy connected with doing so  ( Ps. 70:4); we needn’t wait until New Year’s Day.  We needn’t grow discouraged when we slip up in our quest to be pleasing before Him.  According to Hebrews 7:25, He ever lives to make intercession for us, so in that sense He still seeks after us, His precious blood-bought children.  So rejoice in Christ Jesus as we step into this new year, and keep on seeking Him!

Prayer:  Dear Father:  I thank and praise You for the joyous privilege of being called to walk with You and to pursue You through this earthly pilgrimage.  Help me as I seek to remain focused on growing in You; for in union with You there is joy, peace, and contentment that can be found in no other place or person in this world.  In Jesus’ name. Amen.

(by Sis. Denise Diggs)